The one thing that would have sent me over the moon was the thing I never dared to ask for: books. Yes, books. In my (Jewish!) family, we didn’t buy books. That was what the public library was for. One of my aunts, who understood me a little better than my parents did, passed along to me a fairy-tale book from her own childhood that I still own. It was the real deal, full of grisly tales and terrifying line drawings. I adore it still.

Your daughter bringing you the books must have brought back quite a few memories, and it shows that she also appreciates the personal history behind them. Looks like you taught her well :)

My mother managed to create a similar little ritual with us. No books, but the memory of something sweet.

My sister and I both had braces, and to get them checked we had to drive in the next bigger city (about 30 km away) every 6 weeks because none of dentists nearby were doing work on them yet (the healthcare-system in Germany makes it possible to have work like that done even when you’re on a low income).

We usually spent some time window-shopping and had our food and drink brought with us. But every now and then we would have a little splurge: we went into one of the posh pastry shops where they sold pralines. Then we each would get to pick two, sometimes three of the pralines on display – what the people there thought of us I can’t imagine, there were usually customers before and after us that bought them by the bagful (not that we cared). And then we would sit on a bench somewhere and share them, by eating one half of each of our pick and a half from one of the others’ pick. We loved it, and I love that memory.

And I’m serious about having gotten the most important thing, being loved. We are all closer than most of the familes I know, and I look very much forward to celebrating Christmas with them. In the last few years I also noticed something: when the time to open the presents is there, what each one of us likes best is not opening our own presents, but watching the others open the presents we brought for them. And for some reason we are all very particular about finding just the right thing…

Ok, enough thread-hijacking for now. Back to the past presents :)

I can’t remember asking for any Christmas present when I was young. What I do remember is my Dad would buy me a book everytime we went to Edmonton – my daughter has the Narnia books still, and last time she visited she brought me all the Swallows and Amazons books he bought me, one at a time :-)

Now that I’m middle aged, I want a hot girlfriend. I don’t expect to get that unless I buy her myself.

Wait … er, forget I said that.

My parents never had a lot of money, but they tried their best. Since they always had a lot of things to worry about, their attention to what we really wanted wasn’t all that high, but I also often kept my wishes from them because I knew we couldn’t afford them.

There was a store in a nearby town that had all kinds of stuff, including cheaper versions of regular things (kinda hard to describe). One time we went there and they had a little red sports car, remote-controlled – on a cable. And slooow. I saw it and thought (and am convinced I also said it, but maybe not, I was a pretty quiet kid) that it sucked big time.

Guess what I got that following Christmas.
I recognized that damn thing the second I opened the present and all I could do was to put on a convincing act. Had to get it out of the box, ignore the cable, play with it. Tell them how much I liked it. They were so happy that they’d been able to get me something I really wanted, while I was swallowing tears.
Being poor sucks.

I never told them how wrong that present was, because I know it would hurt them even in retrospect, as one more thing they couldn’t afford when we were growing up. My sister and I are always very careful when we talk about stuff like that and keep telling them that we did get the most important thing, which is the absolute security of being loved.

As for the car, I haven’t gotten one for myself yet. I don’t really have the spare money and keep telling myself it would be stupid and unneccessary – I’m an adult now, right? – but I notice I keep looking at them. And writing that story down just now made me realize that I’m actually still bothered by the whole thing. So maybe I will eventually buy one for my 30th birthday next year.

A pink nightie set is not a reasonable replacement.

I have never, in my whole life, wanted a pink nightie set. Or, indeed, anything chosen for pinkness. I had thought that I had made my feelings on the subject of pinkness incredibly clear. Apparently not.